


tap on it and it's hollow

by ang3lba3



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: AFAB Sokka, AFAB Zuko, Butch Sokka, Canon Rewrite, F/F, Genderbending, Internalized Misogyny, Nonbinary Zuko (Avatar), Zukka is endgame and I havent decided on if i want a polyamory puddle yet, however there will be most popular canon + fanon ships
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-29
Updated: 2020-10-29
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:07:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27260206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ang3lba3/pseuds/ang3lba3
Summary: "No matterhow hard you try,you’re never gonna be a man,” Katara continues, on her feet now, water sloshing against the sides of the boat. “You can’t act like you’re better than me, likeboysare better than both of us—”“I don’t act like that!” Sokka says, clenching the paddle tightly. “Just because I’m not a girly girl—”“THAT! RIGHT THERE!” Katara yells. “THAT’S SEXIST! You’re a girl! You’re girly by default!+"I can’t stand it,” Uyuka finishes. “I would have killed for bone structure like that, and half the time people mistake her for a man.”“Do they?” Sai muses.“A boy,” Uyuka says, waving her mug. “A soldier. A genderless vessel that angry screeching comes out of.”+An exploration of how things might change if Zuko and Sokka were raised as girls rather than boys. Featuring Sokka's misogyny (it's internalized now!), literally nobody else in the entire show being genderswapped, Zuko's unaltered hair journey, Zuko's brand new GENDER journey, and ATLA worldbuilding. Lots of it!
Relationships: Sokka/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 20
Kudos: 107





	tap on it and it's hollow

**Author's Note:**

> **Content warnings for chapter one:** Agni Kai aftermath, suicide mention (the concept), some adults discussing an almost 16 year old's body in an objectifying (and largely insulting) way, some lowkey transphobic rhetoric from multiple characters (the worst of it is in the summary lmao), Zuko being uncomfortably aware of power dynamics between herself and Iroh, a lowkey hunger strike + discussion of food insecurity. 
> 
> **General fic info:** I mostly used the Fire Nation name generator & the guiding rules on the Avatar Wiki site to create names - this means like, all of the OC names are made up nonsense. this fic is rated explicit and chose not to warn. that's mostly because I'm not sure all of what I'm going to include, yet? i'll be doing content warnings per chapter, and if you have questions about a specific trigger just ask. 
> 
> title from this quote by Naomi Alderman: Gender is a shell game. What is a man? Whatever a woman isn't. What is a woman? Whatever a man is not. Tap on it and it's hollow. Look under the shells: it's not there.

She is thirteen years old.

Her ears ring, her hands shake where they lay pressed flat to the blankets. She can feel the tears slipping down her cheek, the thick pressure over the left side of her face and head where there should be pain. She can tell that behind the pressure is pain, but the pain medicine pulls her down, anchors her to the bed, demands that she acknowledge it only as one would the heaviness of dark rain clouds in the distance. 

There’s a noise beside her. Chair legs creaking, silk robes shifting against one another, the heavy sigh of an old man resting. 

“Niece,” Uncle says. Words fail him for a time. It’s alright. Words aren’t her strong point. She’s glad he came, even if it’s just to reprimand her for her foolishness, her pride. For shaming him. 

Something rests over her hand. More pressure. It takes time, but then the other sensations filter through— the rough callous of his palms, the spread where his fingers don’t quite cover hers. Uncle has short, thick hands, that belie his skill with an instrument or a brush. Her long, thin ones mislead people to think she has skill in anything.

“Rest,” he says, and strokes the back of her hand gently. His soldier’s skin rasps against hers. “Rest, for now.”

It takes effort, to make the words come. The pressure grows, creaks, the rain clouds rumbling threateningly as they close in with every movement of her face.

“Sorry,” she manages. 

“Shhh,” Uncle says, and she hears his voice grow thick. “Shhh, Crown Princess Zuko. Rest.”

She tries.

***

She is thirteen years old.

Her heart pounds in her ears, her hands are steady where they grip her traveling pack and her boomerang. She is the best marksman in her village. She has had her first hunt, she is a fully trained warrior. 

Dad drops to his knees in front of her, catching her by the shoulders. She’s only a head taller than him like this. She already knows what he’s going to say.

“No, sweetheart,” he says. He presses a mittened hand to her cheek. She does not cry, so there are no tears to wipe away. Instead, she stares down at him, jaw set firmly, lips thin. “Not you too.”

“Dad—” she starts. Akko is only one year older than her, and he’s going, and he can’t even skin a seal lion cleanly. 

“No,” he says, firmly. It’s not his Dad voice. It’s his Chief voice.

That stings enough that her eyes go glassy, and her lip trembles. She bites at it, blinks until she can force it back. 

“Your sister needs you,” he says, as if Katara has ever needed or wanted _anything_ from Sokka. “Your grandmother. Who will hunt, if you go?” 

She hates it.

She _hates_ it. 

She knows why she’s being left behind. She, she, she, _she._ There are a dozen grown women in the tribe, healthy, strong, having completed their first hunts years ago. And sure, they didn’t keep up on it, but he can’t just — frame it like — 

“I need you,” Dad says, voice cracking a little. She sniffs, hard, and he wipes beneath her eye. “I need you _safe._ Can you do that for me, Sokka? Please.”

He doesn’t say what they both know he’s saying. He doesn’t say that Sokka has Mom’s smile, or Mom’s bravery, or Mom’s ambition, or Mom’s humor. 

He’s already said it, a hundred times.

He doesn’t say that Mom’s dead, and he can’t lose anyone else.

He only had to say that once.

“You stay safe too,” Sokka says, pointlessly. He’s going to war. “You— you come _home._ We need you too.”

“I will, sweetheart,” Dad says, and hugs her. Sokka presses her face into the top of his hair, breathing thick and fast. “I’ll come home as fast as I can.” 

***

“What is this?” Zuko asks. She can feel what it is. It’s a stupid question. The better question would be, _why is this,_ why would he be handing her a knife on her sickbed, she didn’t— things can’t be that bad, things will _never_ be that bad, she _refuses,_ even for Uncle— 

“It is my last war trophy,” Uncle says. He helps her prop her neck up on her pillows when she moves to do so herself, and she tries not to read into it. She tries to trust him, the same way he trusts her, for far less reason. “Before the joy of battle left me. I suffered a great loss, when Lu Ten died.”

Zuko doesn’t nod, instead traces the sheath of the blade with her finger tips, the decorative carvings in the leather. “Mmm?”

“I did not heed its advice, at the time,” Uncle says. Zuko traces across the dips and ridges of the carving faster, jaw tensing despite how much it hurts. “There is an etching on the blade. I think you could learn from its words of wisdom.”

Zuko draws in a deep breath through her nose, nostrils flaring. She slides the sheathe off in one smooth motion, not allowing herself to hesitate. 

It does not say _death before dishonor._ The relief is like a physical blow, hits her in the sternum, knocks the deep breath out of her in a gasp.

It says… 

“Made in the Earth Kingdom?” she asks, heart quickening. Her eye darts to Uncle, disbelievingly. It’s not that— it would explain some things, certainly, but— how would her Mother have even _been_ in the Earth Kingdom? 

Uncle’s face crinkles up as he laughs at her. Zuko doesn’t mind as much as she should. It’s been so long since he’s laughed. 

“The _other_ side has an etching,” he corrects himself.

She flips it over, right side of her lip tugged up in as much of a smile as she can manage.

The smile drops.

It’s somehow worse. 

“This is not advice I took for myself,” Uncle says. “Even when I should have. I gave up on my command, I gave up on my family, I gave up on myself— and, when you most needed me,” he presses a hand to her wrist, and she forces her eyes away from the blade, to meet his gaze. “I gave up on you.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” she says, tearing her eyes away. She stares at the blade, hooks a fingernail in the etching and lets it run through the smooth lines. _Never give up without a fight._

“I will never give up on you again,” Uncle says, and squeezes her wrist gently. She doesn’t look at him. “I mean it, niece. But you must never give up on yourself, either.”

Zuko swallows, convulsively. The rush of saliva before tears, but bitter enough she wonders if it might be before vomit.

She sheathes the knife.

She knows what she has to do.

“I’m healed enough to speak with my— with the Fire Lord,” she says, jaw set. “I will ask him to set me a task, so that I can restore my honor.”

Uncle releases her wrist, stands, creaky chair and creaky old bones. 

“I will tell the servants to come prepare you,” he says. 

Zuko nods, not trusting herself with words. Her hands grip the sheathed knife so tightly that, minutes later, it will have cut deep red marks into her skin. They will fade in the bath.

***

Sokka shaves the sides of her head, carefully. The mirror is small and chipped, balanced precariously on top of a pile of clothing, which is in turn piled on top of a few boxes. She can barely see what she’s doing.

It’s not a hairstyle meant to be kept by herself. The wolftail: the declaration of a warrior, of one of many, of a pack. 

She’s gotten good at keeping it herself, though. She is fifteen, and has not nicked herself in over a year. 

Sokka finishes scraping the last of the stubble and lather away, runs her palm across the soft skin. It shivers pleasantly down her spine, and she smiles, catching the edge of it in her reflection, a flash of tooth.

“Sokka! Sokka, stop messing around with your _hair,_ I need your help with the kids,” Katara says, slapping through the tent flap and glaring at her older sister. 

Sokka rolls her eyes, but cleans her razor quickly, packs the kit away. 

“You mean you wanna go cook and leave me alone with the little monsters,” Sokka corrects. Katara huffs, tilting her face up defiantly. 

“And _you_ wanna go cook?” she asks. “Or do laundry?”

“Laundry?” Sokka says, standing. She slides into her heavier parka, pulls her mittens on, cinching the ties at the wrists. “Or _waterbending?”_

“Ugh!” Katara says, and stomps. She turns on her heel, ice cracking with the force of her steps.

Sokka takes a deep breath, patting her sides to make sure she has everything she needs stowed in her large pockets.

She leaves her parka hood down, for now.

She is one of many. 

***

Zuko gets bored, sometimes.

Bored isn’t a strong enough word for it, for the things it drives her to do. It feels like steel wool scrubbed along the inside of her bones, the sound of the ocean against the hull, the creak of the steel in the night, the thump of boots of her men on patrol, all driving her slowly, steadily insane.

She gets restless, desperate, in the quiet hours of the night. Aching for the things she can’t have, for the impossibility of the tasks before her, for the loneliness. She misses Mai, she misses Ty Lee, she misses Azula— in her worst moments, she misses her father, misses knowing with utter certainty what to do and when it’s a mistake. 

It only takes a year to learn how to run the ship. It takes a year after that to be comfortable running it, to beat the obvious bluster out of her voice into something more biting. Never as good as Azula, too harsh, too loud, too unhinged, near hysterical crack to her high voice when she chews them out. Doesn’t need to be as good as Azula though, not with Uncle behind her. 

Even if he doesn’t fully understand why she can’t afford to show weakness, the fears that dog her every step. The reason that she never leaves her room in less than full armor, topknot high, skull shaved to show the scar and angles of her jaw more starkly. 

She is fifteen, and she is _restless._

***

“Listen up, men!” Sokka barks. She taps the boomerang against the flat of her palm, pacing back and forth in front of the future warriors of the Southern Water Tribe.

One of the future warriors of the Southern Water Tribe starts crying.

Sokka sighs, and drops to a crouch in front of Tanno.

“What’s wrong?” she asks.

“Why— why—” Tanno hiccups. He’s five years old. This is just embarrassing. “Why are you being so LOUD!”

“Did we do something wrong?” Jima asks, around his thumb. He’s seven years old.

Sokka sighs again, sits down heavily. She sets the boomerang on her crossed shins, the weight of it steady and comforting as she reaches to wipe the little boy’s tears away. 

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you,” she says. The gears turn and click in her head, readjusting her approach. She’d loved warrior training when she was young— but it had been her father yelling, and he’d done it with a broad grin. It had been like a game. “I just got excited. How about we play some hide and seek, hm?”

She is one of many.

And they keep each other _safe._

***

She crawls along the top of the mess hall, between the steel beams. Her fingers find holds on the caps of the steel screws, her toes in the crevices where the metal has been welded.

“You fucking girls,” Sai cackles. There’s the sharp _ting_ of his metal mug meeting the metal tabletop, the slopping noise of whatever’s in his cup.

“Agni, I wish I was fucking a girl,” Uyuka moans. It startles Zuko, and she freezes, looking down at the usually stoic woman. There’s a raucous cry of agreement, echoing off the walls of the mess, loud enough to cover the frantic drumming of Zuko’s heart.

“Don’t we all, don’t we all,” Amoko says. 

“Not me,” Sai says, and tosses back another sip of his drink. 

“It’s been months since I’ve seen a pretty woman,” Uyuka says, slouching forward, hands propping her chin up. Zuko thinks this is an easily solvable problem— the ship has mirrors, after all.

“It’s been months since I’ve seen an’thing pretty,” Amoko agrees. 

Zuko’s arms are quivering from the lack of movement, stopped at an awkward place. She takes a moment to settle herself on one of the beams in a crouch, hands balanced carefully on her knees. 

“You’re all ungrateful,” Sai says. There’s an immediate chorus of booing from the others. “No, I’m serious. You serve under the command of a _Princess—”_

“The Princess isn’t a woman,” Amoko says. “She might be sixteen— what, next week? But she’s not… Sai, I know you don’t like women, but you’re not _stupid._ You know when someone looks good. _”_

“She’s barely even a girl,” Uyuka agrees. 

Zuko bites her lip to keep from making a noise. She’s not sure what kind of noise it would have been.

“Have you seen that— her hair?” Uyuka shakes her head, takes another sip of her drink. The drops of liquid left on her lips are clear, sparkling like sweat in the lamp light. Zuko bites her own lip harder, until she can feel blood beading on the skin. “Never seen a girl work so hard to ruin her own looks. She’s got the Fire Lady’s— glory to her soul—”

“Glory to her soul,” Amako and Sai say dutifully.

“—beauty, and she covers herself in armor and chops all her hair off. I can’t stand it,” Uyuka finishes. “I would have killed for bone structure like that, and half the time people mistake her for a man.” 

“Do they?” Sai muses. 

“A boy,” Uyuka says, waving her mug. “A soldier. A genderless vessel that angry screeching comes out of.”

Amoka snorts his drink through his nose.

Zuko wipes the blood from her chin, breathing steadily through her nose. 

She leaves the mess hall the same way she had entered it: restless.

***

“Look,” Sokka says, paddling the canoe. “All I’m sayin’ is, there’s women’s work, and then there’s what I do. And what I do is—”

“More important?” Katara scoffs. “Your neck must hurt, bending to suck yourself off—”

“Hey—” Sokka snaps, sharp.

“Especially since no matter _how hard you try,_ you’re never gonna be a _man,”_ Katara continues, on her feet now, water sloshing against the sides of the boat. “You can’t act like you’re better than me, like _boys_ are better than both of us—”

“I don’t act like that!” Sokka says, clenching the paddle tightly. “Just because I’m not a girly girl—”

“THAT! RIGHT THERE!” Katara yells. “THAT’S SEXIST! You’re a girl! You’re girly by default! La, I am so fucking sick of you—”

The water is moving faster, and an iceberg behind her begins to crack, slivers shivering off of it with every wild swing of her arms. “Katara—” Sokka says, urgently. “Katara, calm do—”

“—ever since Dad left, you act like you’re the only one holding the tribe together! But I do just as much as you, and I’m not a _total shithead about it—”_

The ice splits. Sokka grabs Katara by the front of her parka, dragging her down and twisting so that it’s her back to the shattering iceberg.

***

“What is that light?” Zuko mutters, squinting at the horizon. 

It’s massive, a beam of blue light reaching into the heavens. She’s never seen anything like it. 

The crew is cold. Morale is low, missing home. Not that many of them have homes to come back to, and most are colony brats— the best of a worst bunch, the most a disgraced Princess could ask for. But heading away from the colonies to sail through the Earth Kingdom, and then heading even further to sail south towards the pole—

Mutiny isn’t an option. They’d never rebel against her Uncle like that, and despite everything Zuko has put him through, he remains loyal to her. Deferential. It burns, the pity inherent to it, but she needs it too badly to turn it away. 

“Uncle?” she calls, not looking over her shoulder. He’s playing Pai Sho by himself, tea service beside him, as he so often does during the afternoons. Kneeling on the frigid deck in light clothing, as much of a statement of firebending prowess as Zuko’s bare scalp is. 

“Niece?” he asks. She points demonstratively, twisting to look at him. 

He sighs.

“We’ve been through this before, Princess Zuko,” he chides softly. 

Zuko presses her lips thin, turns back to it. It looks _wrong._ It looks _new._

Her gut twists, indecision, second guessing herself. 

“Set a course to it,” she instructs Captain Jee, voice clipped with stress. She explains herself, attaches caveats to it, in the way that Azula would never. “If it’s nothing, it’s nothing. I find myself wearying of the South.”

“Princess,” he demurs. Zuko, ears ringing with long ago overheard conversations, brushes past him, sweeps past Iroh’s pointedly solitary Pai Sho, and heads for her rooms.

She needs to meditate. Hope is cancerous, and she’ll dig the growing tumors out with bare and bloody fingers.

***

There’s a boy in the iceberg.

There’s a _boy_ in the _iceberg._

He glows, and then he quits glowing and slumps out of it and straight onto the ice. Katara tries to rush forward to catch him, but Sokka shoves an arm outwards, catching her sister across the chest. 

“Katara, _careful,”_ Sokka admonishes. Katara scoffs, and shoves her arm away, but lets Sokka approach first.

Sokka moves forward, stance loose and ready to move, spear point tilted towards the sky. She doesn’t want to stab him if he sneezes, or if the glowing is— well, maybe the glowing is normal? She’s never met an iceberg boy before, or someone wearing so much orange. Despite his young age, he’s entirely bald. And he’s got blue lines up the back of his skull, down his arms and feet. Tattoos? Markings?

It’s an iceberg-boy. 

_Anything_ could be normal.

Once in prodding range, she gently slides the spear bottom under his shoulder and uses it to flip him onto his back. 

He looks shockingly young, eyelids flickering in the way of someone deep in sleep. 

“Huh,” Sokka says. 

She jams the butt of her spear into his hip, about as hard as she’d kick Katara to get her up the morning after a full moon. 

“Sokka!” Katara yells, pushing her out of the way as she rushes to his side. Sokka stumbles, barely catching herself. The boy’s eyes are flickering. “He’s just a kid, quit it!”

“Katara, we don’t know _what_ he is,” Sokka says, diving forward beside her. She pushes Katara out of the way, but Katara pushes her way right back in, mouth stubborn. 

“I need… to ask you… something…” the boy rasps weakly. Katara gasps, tucking her mittened hand under his neck, supporting his skull. 

“He’s a child, not an infant,” Sokka mutters.

“What? What is it?” Katara asks.

The kid ignores Sokka, continuing to stare at Katara’s face. “Come… closer…”

“Do not—” Sokka starts, but Katara’s already leaning in, blue eyes wide with worry.

“Will you go penguin sledding with me?” the kid asks, grinning wide and cheerful, abruptly awake. 

Sokka snorts. Even as wary as she is, the crushed hope on Katara’s face is pretty hilarious. Katara leans back, flushed, removing her hand from the kid’s neck to rub at the back of her own. 

“Um— I— I guess?” she says. 

“No!” Sokka argues. “No guessing! No sledding. Who are you, what are you doing here, why were you frozen in ice, how are you _alive—_ ” 

“I’m Aang!” Aang says. He hops to his feet, stretching his back out. “Wow. I was frozen in ice? That’s pretty wild. Appa! Appa, are you okay!”

There’s a loud rumble from the ice, and out climbs the biggest fucking mammal Sokka has ever seen. She scrambles to her feet, spear held in both hands and pointed outwards.

“What the _fuck_ is that?!” she demands.

“Appa’s my flying bison!” Aang says cheerfully. Katara looks utterly charmed, mittens clasped over her mouth in awe. It’s the polar bear dog litter all over again.

“We’re not keeping them,” Sokka hisses at her.

***

“Again,” Uncle says. His voice cracks across the clear air of the deck. Zuko reacts to it like a physical blow, pushing herself forward into the exercise again. She doesn’t stop to steady her breathing, erratic and shaky in her chest, a reflection of the trembling muscles that can barely hold her. 

They block her, easily. That’s fine, but it’s not fine— it’s too easy, and her breath slips even further upwards in her chest, the calm she’d been holding onto by her fingertips dissipating like smoke on the breeze. She ducks the incoming blows and twists, kicks fire that she can barely feel the heat of through the soles of her shoes. 

She lands, facing them, breathing hard. Only halfway through the exercise, and it’s worse than it was before. She readies herself for the next half, but Uncle—

“No!” he calls, and drags himself to his feet. She feels her heart beating against her ribcage, a trapped and dying bird. “Power in firebending comes from the breath, not the muscles. The breath becomes energy in the body. The energy extends past your limbs and becomes—”

He moves as he speaks, demonstrating. When he punches fire from his fist, it comes close enough to her face that she can feel the searing heat of it, the sweat on her skin evaporating. 

“Fire! Get it right this time,” Iroh finishes, face stern. 

Zuko snaps.

“Enough!” she says, shaking with anger. She wants to get away from him, as far away from him as she can. So she walks towards him, shoulders squared. The closer she gets the more obvious it is how much smaller he is than her— just an old, sour, _bitter_ man with nothing left to love. Nothing but her, who isn’t _worth it._ “I’ve been drilling this sequence all day. Teach me the next set! I’m more than ready!”

And she _is._ They’ve swapped the soldiers out three times now, she’s not even sure who’s up here. She’s been drilling for hours, the steady calming ache of it crushing her bones, and Iroh’s been— been what, precisely? Yelling out unhelpful commentary on _breathing_ and _tea breaks._

“No, you are impatient,” Iroh corrects her, and sits back down. She briefly sees red, and in one moment she is all too aware of how she looks. All too aware that even if he _isn’t_ right, which he _isn’t_ , all he has to do to be believed is say it. He’s the calm one, after all. The one trying to _help_ her. “You have yet to master your basics. Drill it again!”

Zuko bares her teeth, twists in a fire kick. This time is nothing like the last, the force hard enough to knock one of the men off his feet. 

The shame writhes underneath her skin, maggots. 

“The sages tell us that the Avatar is the last airbender,” Zuko says, fists clenched. Her voice shakes in her throat, so she raises it. “He must be over a hundred years old by now. He's had a _century_ to master the four elements! I'll need more than basic firebending to defeat him.”

Her voice is far too loud now, a yell caught between gritted teeth. “You _will_ teach me the advanced set!”

Uncle stares at her, steady and severe. She doesn’t back down, but doesn’t let herself step forward either, a vibrating mess of nerves barely held in by her own scarred skin.

“Very well,” he says, voice grave. Then he smiles, pulling a plate off the ground. “But first, I must finish my roast duck!”

Zuko’s anger collapses, folds in on itself. Her shoulders cave inwards, and she tries to hide it, reaching her hands up to rub at her face, turning to face the sea. The crew members are still standing, waiting, and she knows there’s a fresh rotation when they get tired. 

“Dismissed,” she says, and closes one arm around her own waist. She walks to lean one elbow against the railing, chin against her closed fist, ignoring Uncle as he tries to convince her to sit down and eat something.

She’ll sit down and eat something when he gives her the advanced fucking set.

***

“Gran-gran, we can’t keep him,” Sokka says, one arm wrapped around her own waist and the other pinching the bridge of her nose.

There’s too many people clustered in the tent, Katara and Aang watching the older children while the adults talk. Sokka never had a chance to go ice dodging, but she’s fifteen, and she’s been steadily handling more and more of the responsibilities of the Chief _and_ the Chief’s wife. In the absence of her father, her mother, and a new elected Chief—

Her and Gran-gran’s words hold weight that the others don’t. Weight that’s maybe too heavy for them to lift, or maybe they're too tired, or maybe they're just not stubborn enough. The end result is that the entire tribe gets to bear witness to her and her grandmother disagreeing. 

“He’s a child,” Gran-gran says, soft and chiding. “Possibly the last Air Nomad.”

“He’s a child,” Sokka says, exasperated. Then, with all the disgust and frustration she’d felt when Aang had explained the concept on the ride back: “And a _vegetarian.”_

“A what?” Gran-gran asks.

“He doesn’t eat meat,” Sokka says. “Air Nomad thing, he says.”

There’s a murmur of worry. With ever tightening trade availability from the Earth Kingdom, food that isn’t meat is even farther and fewer between than before. There’s no way that a growing boy could survive off what they have available, even if no one else had any.

“Fish ain’t meat,” Gran-gran says.

“What? Of course it is,” Sokka says.

“I don’t think so. Meat comes from mammals.”

“Gran-gran, it has eyeballs and dies, it’s meat.” 

“Clam-stars.”

“Where are we going to get enough clam-stars to feed—”

“Mole-cod.”

“Gran-gran, they still _die—_ ”

“Let’s just feed him some soup and see what happens,” Gran-gran decides. “He’s a growing boy, he’ll come to his senses.”

“What about his giant bison?” Sokka says, flinging her arms outwards.

“Oh, I’m sure that can feed itself,” Gran-gran says, blissfully peaceful, and then glides out of the tent. 

The women of the tribe follow, until Sokka is left standing alone. 

“We can’t _keep him,”_ Sokka says again. But staring at the fur lined walls, standing alone, she knows it’s a lost battle.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't have an update schedule and can't promise quick chapters, but since this largely follows canon plot on a stretched timeline up until The Battle of Black Sun you won't be left in suspenseful WIP hell.


End file.
